The importance of index cards
by A.A. Pessimal
Summary: Following a magical accident at the Library, Sergeant A.E. Pessimal of the Watch is sent to where nobody has ever returned alive. Can Pessimal become the first to return from the grip of a denizen of the Dungeon Dimensions? Apologies to H.P. Lovecraft...


In which a denizen of the Dungeon Dimensions, very briefly referenced in _**Moving Pictures,**_ gets a chance to appear in a story. I wanted to write this for a while to demonstrate that a perceived monster isn't necessarily evil – just misunderstood…

* * *

There is a moment of ice-cold realisation that comes to everybody who realises they have forgotten or otherwise ignored good advice from seasoned professionals. The memory of the words _Don't, whatever you do, do this_, tends to come once the _this_ has been _done,_ and it's far too late to do anything about it now.

Memory came to Constable Pessimal of the Watch as he found himself plummeting to what looked to be a messy painful death, perhaps a hundred feet below him on the tiled floor of the Unseen University library.

_Never chase a suspect onto the Library roof! _had become yet another Watchword, after Mr Vimes' recent uncomfortable experience. It jostled with _Never chase a Thief or an Assassin at rooftop level, as they have got years of edificeering experience behind them. You haven't._

At least the suspect had fallen through the skylight with him: Pessimal, belatedly recalling another piece of good advice, sought to twist in the air so that XXL Dave was underneath, and might cushion his fall. Pessimal was surprised to be able to think so coldly, but then, he recalled, it had been XXL Dave's weight that had broken the skylight in the first place. He braced himself for impact. There was a sudden _whoomph_ of actinal light, flaring magnesium-white, tinged with octarine…

And Constable Ping, looking down through the broken skylight at his beat partner, blinked twice in the light… his eyes recovering, he saw nothing. No splattered puddle of fat man, no broken body of Pessimal.

"Oh shit" he moaned. "It's happened again!" With a heavy heart, he set off to report to Vimes.

* * *

"Of course, we'll do everything we can, Sam." Mustrum Ridcully said, gently. "But your Watchman could have come out anywhere. And as you know, there's no guarantee he could have come out in the same place as the fella he was chasin'"

"Do what you can." Sam Vimes nodded acknowledgement.

"HEX is on the case. But some personal item your man used. Something to help HEX get a fix on him. That would be helpful."

Captain Carrot stepped forward.

"I picked these up at the Yard, sir. Pessimal's personal pen and inkstand and clipboard set."

"Let's try" Ridcully said. He raised his voice and called "STIBBONS!"

* * *

The fall lasted a lot, lot, longer than Pessimal anticipated. After a while, all sense that he was falling faded. Underneath him, XXL Dave gibbered with fear, his jowls and double chins flapping.

"If you survive this, you are, of course, under arrest." Pessimal said, mildly.

Still braced for impact, he was mildly surprised when they settled into something warm and wet with the merest of splashes. He swung his legs from the fat man's bulk, and stood up, sinking to his mid-calves into … mud? He looked round. He appeared to be in a marsh, or a swamp, with warm air and ample undergrowth. Although the vegetation was like nothing he'd ever seen on the Disc. And the sky was black and starless?

He looked back to where XXL Dave was sitting up and spluttering marsh water. Pessimal flicked a few flies away from his eyes.

"Wherever we are, we don't seem to be on the Discworld any more.".

XXL Dave floundered, huffing, onto the relatively dry land. Pessimal offered him an arm to safety.

"Remain here, for now. I'll go and look around a bit. When you get your breath back, you might consider looking for clean water."

Pessimal looked around him, and reasoned that where the vegetation was most lush and thick was the likeliest place to start looking for fresh clean water. He moved through the strange-looking undergrowth, wondering exactly where he was for such lush purple and orange plants to be growing under that black sky. The flowers were a psychedelic riot of colours, but they had no scent in the accepted manner of things; to his slight distaste, the odour of rotting meat billowed from them as he disturbed them. He absently flicked a few more flies away: they were thicker here, near the mad pink and yellow blooms, and appeared to be somehow feeding off the pollen.

And then he found it: water. At least, it looked like water: Pessimal recalled his police training of _Accept nothing. Believe nobody. Confirm everything. _Just because it was clear and liquid and running freely didn't mean it had to be water. Lots of clear low-viscosity liquids look like water. Hydrochloric acid, for instance. Pessimal gingerly extended his Watch-issue sword into the flow. To his relief, the liquid splashed rather than sizzled. A couple of drops remained on the blade. He dipped his finger and sniffed, then tasted. _Water. But what is there to carry it in? _

He knelt by the trickling stream and pondered the problem, splashing some of the liquid over himself – it was really getting quite warm – and taking some in his cupped hands. He drank, gratefully. Unheeded, something stirred behind him. Something _large. _Its shadow moved.

* * *

"What do you mean, you're not getting a fix on the fella?" demanded Ridcully. "Everybody's got a unique thaumic signature, man. You told me yourself!"

Ponder Stibbons backed away a pace under the verbal onslaught. HEX had trawled a large part of time and space for the missing Pessimal, and had in fact tracked him to five separate locations based on his unique thaumic signature. These had included Beckerswick's Paper Mill, Teemer and Spools (High Security Government Printers), Papertray's Discount Office Suppliers, and the stationery cupboard at the Patrician's Palace. The fifth had been Dratley and Co, a furniture-makers on Phedre Street. They had been excited enough at a possible fix here to ask HEX to transfer Pessimal and his arrest directly to the HEM: a brief octarine shimmer later, and they had been looking at a dozen or so filing cabinets and a crate of compatible precut index files. Sam Vimes had felt a common theme was emerging.

"Errr.. the difficulty appears to be that the search subject has a remarkably subdued ego, sir." Stibbons said. "The bigger the ego – that is, the sense of self, of the importance of self – the easier it is to locate somebody. And Commander Vimes.. you tell me Sergeant Pessimal wasn't so much _named_ as _indexed_, as a child?"

"His first names are A.E." Vimes said, lighting a cigar. "Just that. Not Albert Edward or anything, just A.E."

"Youngest of five brothers, is he?" Ridcully mused.

"Funny you should say that!" observed Captain Carrot. "His older brothers are A.A. Pessimal, A.B. Pessimal…"

"I get the idea, Captain." Ridcully nodded.

Vimes intervened. "He was _born_ to paperwork, was A.E. His father was one of Snapcase's file clerks, Winder kept him on because he was so damn good at what he did. His mother was a champion mail-sorter for the Post Office before they installed that bloody machine. She moved on to work at the Palace too. When they retired, they got their sons into palace clerking jobs."

"So we're picking up on what he _does_. What he's _best_ at. Because his ego-drive is so low, his thaumic signature resonates to paper. And government forms. And filing cabinets..." Stibbons looked deeply thoughtful.

"Just get him back. Please. My desk has never been clearer!" said Vimes.

"And he's a Watchman." Carrot said, with mild reproof.

"And we never leave a Watchman behind, of course!" Vimes amended, hastily.

"HEX!" shouted Stibbons. "Turn up the gain, please. As far as it will go!"

+++I HEAR YOU, PROFESSOR STIBBONS +++

* * *

Pessimal straightened up in the act of filling his helmet with water and half-turned, sensing the presence of something nearby. There was a susurration, a noise as of many voices, and it seemed to say:

_**MamamamamamammommymamamamaMAMAmummymamamummymatermamamamamamamamaMUM! Mamamamamamama…… **_

Without cease. Without end. If Pessimal had been trained as a wizard, he would by now be manifesting all the signs of sheer dread , panic fright, and a screaming soul-searing apprehension of an inevitable grisly death. As he had been trained first as a Palace clerk and then as a Watchman, the only emotion he felt was interest and curiosity and a feeling of "good, maybe whatever it is knows the way out of here."

_**Mummy! Mummy! A visitor! A guest! Mummy, come look!**_

The multitude of voices rose to a clamour. A deeper voice, louder than the rest, more adult, spoke

**Oh Good! How **_**lovely**_**! Bring him to the pond, children! Be gentle, we haven't had a visitor in simply AGES! Best behaviour, now!**

The voice had deep inhuman qualities to it and a tone and resonances suggesting a manifestation of age-old chthonic evil could be a distinct possibility, that is, if its owner could be bothered. Pessimal heard something else there, something oddly reminiscent of his sister B.C. a year or two after her wedding. Weary resignation? He lifted his head, cautiously, above the level of the vegetation. He glimpsed a vast dark wave, made of thousand upon thousand of small moving creatures, undulating across the landscape. He saw a larger dark shape somewhere in the middle. He saw XXL Dave being swept up bodily on the wave and heard him scream in mortal terror and fear. Reasoning he had a duty to his prisoner, Pessimal waited for the last of the wave to pass him by, counted to thirty, and slowly, cautiously, followed. After a while, the ground grew drier and firmer under his feet and things started to get under his feet. He thought at first they were twigs and branches, and moved with care, so as not to break any and advertise his presence. He heard splashing in the distance.

**Find our guest a lily-pad to sit on! A big comfortable one, children! Oh, I'm so excited to have a guest at long last! **

He thought he heard XXL Dave gibbering in terror above the sound of the things.

* * *

"Well, why don't we try to get a fix on the _other_ one, XXL Dave?" Vimes demanded. "If we locate him, Pessimal can't be far away!"

"I got some of his clothes from his last known address, sir." said Angua. "And believe me, with my nose that wasn't pleasant!"

"Put them on the table, please, Sergeant?" requested Stibbons. "Thank you. HEX?"

+++COMPUTING+++ I MUST SAY THE OLFACTORY FACTOR IS QUITE MARKED++IT IS MORE THAN ADEQUTE TO LOCATE THE PERSON+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ LOCATION FIXED+++

+++PLEASE REMOVE THESE GARMENTS FROM MY SENSOR+++

Vimes, Ridcully, Stibbons, Angua and Carrot crowded forward.

HEX's printout rattled out of the scribing unit.

"Oh, my…" Stibbons breathed. Ridcully did the reverse-whistling thing through his teeth.

"Sam. I'm so sorry. You should prepare yourself for the worst, old chap."

Vimes read the printout.

+++XXL DAVE, AND BY INFERENCE SERGEANT PESSIMAL, ARE TRAPPED IN THE DUNGEON DIMENSIONS+++. I CANNOT YET RETRIEVE THEM.++THEY ARE IN THE REALM OF TSHUP AKLATHEP+++ THE INFERNAL STAR-TOAD WITH A MILLLION YOUNG+++ THE TOAD IS AWARE OF XXL DAVE AND HAS TAKEN HIM TO HER LAIR+++ PESSIMAL REMAINS FREE, FOR THE MOMENT+++

"Good or bad?" asked Vimes. He thought, and added "Silly question, wasn't it…"

Ridcully nodded. "Sam, old chap. One of the first things any young wizard learns is…"

* * *

Pessimal soon realised that for as far as the eye could see, there was a sea of bones. The oldest were just scattered charnel parts: newer ones seemed to have retained integrity, and several were still in wizards' robes. Not all of them were human: some seemed to be dwarves, and others weren't even humanoid. Pessimal investigated a worn and decaying pointy hat. It rolled away. There was nothing between it and the shoulders of the skeleton it appeared to belong to. This appeared to be a common factor to all the remains. Lots and lots of bones of all sorts, with the marked exception of skulls of any kind. A fine gritty bone-coloured dust underpinned everything, with larger shreds and fragments dotted about here and there.

_Interesting, _thought Pessimal. _Common cause of death? _He cleared a space and inched forward on his stomach, watching the lake. The horde of toad-like creatures were occupying every inch of the water surface, with some spilling out onto the shores. The biggest, largest, wartiest, toad of all, about twice the size of a man, was in the centre, using one forepaw to hold the hapless XXL Dave in firm place, whilst holding an album of some sort in its…her?...other forepaw.

_At least it's fairly clear of flies round here, _Pessimal thought, as he watched and listened. One of the toads flicked out a long black tongue and snicked a fly out of the air. _Bufo bufo, the common toad. That explains the abundance of flies. _The voice drifted over the lake to him.

**Now this is my nine hundred and forty-third child, Jennifer the Dread of Galaxies. That's a **_**lovely**_** picture of her as a tadpole, isn't it? The iconographer has got her just right, I think. Moving on to number four hundred and forty-four, Kevin, Eater of Souls…**

"Gnnnnnnnnn!" moaned XXL Dave.

Pessimal laid in wait, concealed by the time-dulled chitinous exoskelton of what might once have been a very big cockroach. However, as with every other skeletal corpse there, the thorax ended abruptly where a head might have been expected.

* * *

"How horrible!" Angua shuddered.

"Is there really nothing that can be done?" asked Vimes.

"Nothing comes back from the Star Toad's realm, Sam." Ridcully said. "We've lost a few good wizards that way. And we had this young Assassin here the other week, clever little sod, wanted to have a hack at the Teatime Prize for most creative inhumation of a non-human entity, could she ask for researcher's rights? Showed her the files on Tshup Aklathep, even _that_ turned her mind! Had to get her teacher to collect her, put her in their San for a week raving in terror. She wasn't happy, I can tell you!"

Ridcully took a nip from his hat-flask, reflectively.

"That Quirmian one, woman with the sweet patience of a Goddess with her monthlies and the even temper of a basilisk. Madame Deux-Ėpées. Granted she admitted the student had an over-confidence problem, but she was annoyed she'd have to write a report for Downey about temporary damage to a pupil."

Sam winced. Some things you wouldn't even wish on an Assassin.

"Ouch" he said. "Ususally if they're getting over-confident, they get sent to me for a swift dose of hard reality. That one must have _really_ annoyed Teacher".

"Yes, sir, but they're usually sent to you by Alice Band." Carrot observed. "She's thought of as one of the more lenient ones who actually likes her pupils, and wants them to succeed."

Vimes nodded, and returned to the subject in hand.

"Is there nothing we can do?"

"Well.. we _could_ always send Rincewind in. With that box thing of his. They've been there before and got out. And hell's bells, the man's Egregious Professor of Cruel and Un-natural Geography. Field trip like this should be _right_ up his job description."

**_________________________________**

**And this is my number one thousand and twelve, Wayne the Vengeance Upon Mortal Worlds. Just in this clutch of eggs here, look, this is his first picture, the one standing a little more proud and eggy than the rest. His very first baby picture from even before he was a tadpole, bless him! **

"''_**at's me!" **_a proud little voice said.

"GnnnnnnnnnNNNNYYYYAAAARGGH!" moaned XXL Dave, writhing in agony.

Pessimal, un-noticed and unmolested, nodded in empathy. He was also, uniquely for one in such mortal peril, quite interested.

There wax a sudden noise, which was almost but not completely unlike the cracking of a brazil nut combined with the deflating of a balloon and the noise of a straw slurping the last few dregs from the bottom of a particularly thick milkshake. Pessimal turned his head away.

**Oh, **_**no**_**! Not **_**another**_** one! I never get past the first few thousand! It must be the excitement or something, **_**all**_** their heads do that after a while! "**

After a while, the speaker sighed audibly and calmed down.

**Children, can some of you put him with all the others? Thank you.**

Pessimal awoke to the danger as he realised he was lying among All The Others. Who, he saw as XXL Dave's mortal remains approached him, borne by a group of the toad-like things, really did share a common cause of death. Their heads had all exploded. But a new and greater danger was surrounding him.

_**Mummy? Mummy! Mum! We've found you another one! We've got you another guest! Mummy! Come and look!**_

**Bring him to me, children. Oh look, another human!**

Pessimal was carried aloft and swept away to the lake on a tide of toads. He smelt stagnant water. He was dropped, carefully, onto a lily pad that withstood his light weight with ease. And he saw the Great Toad.

**Hello! **The voice said. **Two visitors in one day was simply too much to expect, but I'm jolly glad you're here. Why don't you make yourself comfortable and I can show you some pictures of my children?**

"Would you be able to manage a cup of tea?" Pessimal asked, mildly. "I'm really rather parched!"

______________________________________________

+++ I CAN NOW RETRIEVE HE ONE KNOWN AS XXL DAVE +++

+++ A CORRSPONDING MASS WILL BE SENT OUT FROM THIS PHASE OF REALITY+++

There was a shimmering haze. Six or seven of the filing cabinets and part of the stationery from Papertray's disappeared.

"Damn". said Ridcully. "The Bursar was goin' on about needin' more filin' cabinets. They'd have been ideal!"

And then XXL Dave, or most of him, came back.

"I think we can safely say he's dead, sir" Carrot observed. Vimes winced.

"They're going to put this down to Watch brutality. Again. Especially when the bloody Times hears about it!"

"If it helps, Sam, I'll give you a statement on me honour as Arch-chancellor to say what really happened. That you were blameless and did all you could to get 'em back alive from the Dungeon Dimensions"

"Thanks. That would be helpful. But will Pessimal come back like this?"

Remembering a time when all this had just been revision for his Finals, and wondering what had become of Victor Tugelbend since, Ponder Stibbons said, quietly

"It's the traditional fate for all those taken alive by the Star-Toad, Commander. I'm sorry."

Vimes sighed. "Let's get this body taken to a morgue somewhere. Send people out to any known relatives to tell them XXL Dave is dead. We can at least do that much."

**I can perform small magics. **Said the Star-Toad. Pessimal felt his brain being read. _**I apologise for the intrusion. Ah yes, tea. **_

The presence withdrew, and a small occasional table appeared hovering above the water at the right height, laden with teapot, milk, sugar and cups and saucers. With a word of thanks, Pessimal poured a cup. He offered it to the toad, who took it clumsily in a forepaw. He raised the teapot again.

**This is cosy, isn't it? Thank you, mr Pessimal. I'd forgotten I could do these things. But you know how it is when you're a single parent and all your time's taken up with the children, love them though I do. You tend to lose track of the niceties of being an adult and you forget about adult things.**

She sounded uncannily reminiscent of his sister B.C., stuck at home with three small children, with a desperate tight smile on her face and a realisation that married life wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

**I'd never criticise their father in front of the children, but he said it was all going to be different. We'd go out and terrorize galaxies together. We'd be rulers of entire solar systems. We'd conquer and be feared. And here I am stuck at home with the kids, while _he's_ having a whale of a time. **

Pessimal felt, rather than heard, the Mutant Star-Toad subvocalising the word **Bastard! **with some feeling, and nodded. _Exactly _like B.C., then.

**Anyway, shall we start? Ooooh – what was that?**

The body of XXL Dave, out on the disregarded charnel shore, had just flashed with eerie green iridescence and disappeared. In its place were six or seven…_filing cabinets_? – and several crates of stationery. Pessimal smiled. If he stayed calm, rescue was a matter of time away.

**Nothing important, I think. This is my firstborn, Mylene, Devourer of Worlds. She's grown up now and moved away. She's doing a Masters Degree in Hellfire Studies at the University of Pandemonia, isn't that nice? **

And so time passed for Pessimal, while in a nearby dimension, people who cared for him waited anxiously.

**And this is number seven thousand, nine hundred and forty five, Michaela, Wrecker of Cosmic Balance. Look, you've got a lot further than anybody else ever has. Nothing above your collar is… feeling warm? Overheating? Just uncomfortable? Are you sure you don't need a break? **

"No, that's fine, I assure you!" Pessimal had asked for some paper to be retrieved from the sudden attack of interdimensional stationery. He always carried a pen. He was ticking off the young of the Star-Toad, one by one. Pessimal liked counting, quantifying, bringing order out of chaos, and making sense of alphanumeric systems. Inside he was thinking: _A million young! She really, really, needs a database to keep track of it all. Lucky for her I came along! _To Pessimal, Tshup Aklathep, the Mutant Star-Toad with a Million Young, was not so much a thing to be shunned and dreaded, as a career-best challenge. And he was rising to it.

**You really think I'd benefit from a modern alphanumeric filing system to keep everything in order? **

"With a million children, you can't be expected to remember everything" Pessimal assured her. " I see my colleagues have sent me some filing cabinets and compatible stationery, so if you permit, I can make a start. Do keep showing me the pictures, by the way! "

**Oooh. Crikey. Well, this is number one hundred and forty thousand, two hundred and seventy one, Xerxes, Prince of Dark Inchoate Chaos…**

"He's got your eyes"

**He has, hasn't he? ****Clever of you to notice!**

* * *

"We can only wait, Sam" Ridcully said, resignedly. "The fella seems to be hangin' on in there, though. But bantams like that always punch above their weight!"

Sam Vimes nodded, gloomily.

* * *

**And this is number eight hundred and forty seven thousand, three hundred and twenty three, Sharon, She Who Makes Strong Men Gibber with Insanity.**

Pessimal cheerily completed another index card, attached the photo, and filed it in number order, not neglecting links in name order, birth date, seniority by age, egg-clutch-mates and identifying features, such as unique arrangements of warts on the left forward foot.

**Oh, I'm **_**so**_** pleased! I've never got so far before! Another cup of tea, mr Pessimal?**

"Yes, please" A.E. said, gratefully. He was really enjoying himself, filled with a sense of doing something worthwhile and bringing order out of chaos. He was sorry it was getting near to its end…

More and more senior Wizards had entered the HEM, watching on the omniscope link HEX had managed to establish. HEX was continually monitoring the situation, but at Ridcully's insistence was only showing short highly edited extracts of the process of cataloguing Tshup Aklathep's fell offspring. Ridcully had been firm about this: he didn't want an outbreak of explodin' heads around _this_ University, not even among the Faculty. Though you, Dean, can watch as much as you damn' well like!

"I don't believe it. I don't bloody well believe it." Ridcully muttered. "All them headless bodies out there, and this little fella's totally unaffected by it?"

Vimes grinned. "He's in his element!"

Ridcully grunted.

"Going to have to make him a honorary Wizard if he comes back intact. Situation calls for it!"

Angua said, doubtfully, "Mr Ridcully? Professor Stibbons? Pessimal's counting and by the look of it registering nearly a million... we only sent him seven filing cabinets and a box of index cards. He'll run out of space and resources, won't he? And shouldn't it be taking far longer than this? He's only been in there for six or seven hours!"

Ridcully patted her arm. Angua found this to be a _gallant _gesture, somehow, although it was so very close to being a patronising pat, which in most circumstances anyone wishing to keep their hand should not do to a werewolf.

"Time and space are....a bit _elastic_ in there, m'dear." Ridcully said. "Take our man Rincewind. He got caught in there once. Thought he was only in for three days, but by the time he got out again, came out in Pseudopolis as I recall, seventeen years had passed on this side. A bit like what they say about fairy hills. You spend one night with the elves, the vicious little bastards rig it so a hundred years pass outside. It's their bloody idea of a joke."

"So we might think Pessimal has only been in there for six hours..." Angua mused, working it out...

"But once in there, he has ample time to catalogue a million of them blasted star- toad things. For the same reasons, he'll have enough filing cabinet space and index cards. Trust me on this."

+++ THE MAGICAL TRANSITIONS UNDEGONE BY THOSE FILING CABINETS HAVE IMBUED THEM WITH RESIDUAL MAGIC+++ DID YOU NOTICE THAT DRATLEYS DID SOME OF THE ORNAMENTAL INLAY WITH SAPIENT PEARWOOD?+++ THERE WILL BE ENOUGH FILING SPACE FOR PESSIMAL'S UNIQUE NEEDS +++ PROFESSOR STIBBONS, THINK OF THEM AS BEING AKIN TO THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES+++

Ponder's pencil suddenly started flying over the paper.

* * *

**And…finally…. This is number one million, two hundred and sixteen, Egbert, Infernal Renderer of Star-Stuff. I owe it to you, mr Pessimal, I'd never counted them all accurately before!**

"One of the benefits of keeping an accurate database, ma'am." Pessimal said, touching his helmet.

**Ooh… do call me Tshup, I feel we're good friends now!**

"In fact, it's one million, two hundred and seventeen, to be scrupulously accurate. There's a little chap down here who's not been iconographed yet! "

**Oh… Ronald, He Who Turns Planets Into Foul Offal! Poor little Ronnie, how **_**could**_** I have overlooked you? Fetch the iconograph, children!**

An iconograph was produced, from inside which Pessimal could hear sounds of screaming alternated with gibbering. Tshup Aklathep tapped on the box with an impatient foreclaw.

**Come along, pull yourself together. Just one more – no, several! **

A gibbering and clearly insane imp, white froth flecked about tiny fangs, crawled out of the hatch.

"No… no more…. Please…. Thribble…. spam driveshaft… the wirbles are heavy on the old fluxmaconockie. Fnord…. The fnords are loose in the prose space… "

**It's a **_**very**_** old model, mr Pessimal.**

Pessimal looked at the imp in the picture box with mute sympathy.

"Come on, old chap. Just a few last pictures, and these will be the last!"

Somehow the record shots of Ronald, He Who Turns Planets Into Foul Offal, were taken and attached to the last index card.

**I'm going to have to send you back to your home now, Mr Pessimal. Fair's fair, you saw it through to the end. I'd love**** it if you called back, though!**

"Take me with you, guvnor! Take me with you! Please don't leave me here… that bloody wizard… sent me here because he couldn't understand my instruction manual…..." the icongraph imp screamed, in a brief fit of sanity. Then there was a noise like a tough hazelnut cracking and a brief liquid spurt.

Pessimal looked down, with compassion, at the headless body of the picture imp.

"I'll ask the wizards to send you a new one. No, they breed imps for the job. I'll ask them to breed you one who'll enjoy it here." Pessimal said.

**Thank you, mr Pessimal. Say goodbye, children! Wasn't he a wonderful guest?**

And Pessimal felt the Dungeon Dimensions fade around him, re-appearing in the middle of a ring of wizards, all of whom backed away from him in some awe, some, like the Dean, menacingly pointing staffs at him.

He recognised Ridcully, who cautiously asked

"Feelin' alright, that man? Head not overheatin' and about to explode?"

"Never felt better, Archchancellor!" Pessimal reassured him." I would, though, like to sleep for a while…"

"Let's get you home, A.E." Vimes said, catching his Watchman as he swayed. "You've got leave for as long as you need it."

"Thank you sir. I regret I wasn't able to apprehend XXL Dave, and I apologise for the damage caused to the Library roof."

"No need to worry, old chap. The bill's been sent to His Lordship as usual." Ridcully assured him.

"Who'll send it on to me" said Vimes. "But that's not the important thing. I'm just glad you're back."

"Yes, the paperwork and all that" murmured Angua. Vimes looked at her in reproach.

"We _never_ leave a Watchman behind, Sergeant."


End file.
